y a friendly
country, great in its resources and population. The abandonment of the
contest in North America would have strengthened England very much
more than the allies. As it was, her large naval detachments there
were always liable to be overpowered by a sudden move of the enemy
from the sea, as happened in 1778 and 1781.

To the abandonment of America as hopelessly lost, because no military
subjection could have brought back the old loyalty, should have been
added the giving up, for the time, all military occupancy which
fettered concentration, while not adding to military strength. Most of
the Antilles fell under this head, and the ultimate possession of them
would depend upon the naval campaign. Garrisons could have been spared
for Barbadoes and Sta. Lucia, for Gibraltar and perhaps for Mahon,
that could have effectually maintained them until the empire of the
seas was decided; and to them could have been added one or two vital
positions in America, like New York and Charleston, to be held only
till guarantees were given for such treatment of the loyalists among
the inhabitants as good faith required England to exact.

Having thus stripped herself of every weight, rapid concentration with
offensive purpose should have followed. Sixty ships-of-the-line on the
coast of Europe, half before Cadiz and half before Brest, with a
reserve at home to replace injured ships, would not have exhausted by
a great deal the roll of the English navy; and that such fleets would
not have had to fight, may not only be said by us, who have the whole
history before us, but might have been inferred by those who had
watched the tactics of D'Estaing and De Guichen, and later on of De
Grasse. Or, had even so much dispersal been thought unadvisable, forty
ships before Brest would have left the sea open to the Spanish fleet
to try conclusions with the rest of the English navy when the question
of controlling Gibraltar and Mahon came up for decision. Knowing what
we do of the efficiency of the two services, there can be little
question of the result; and Gibraltar, instead of a weight, would, as
often before and since those days, have been an element of strength to
Great Britain.

The conclusion continually recurs. Whatever may be the determining
factors in strifes between neighboring continental States, when a
question arises of control over distant regions, politically
weak,--whether they be crumbling empires, anarchical republics,
col